What do you do when your emotions interfere with your writing? I had an especially bad day. I got home, took an hour to decompress, and started on my wip. It was a disaster. Both my hero and heroine sounded cold, angry, and whiny all at the same time. I cut the whole scene and saved it in my junk file. Then I turned off my computer and attacked my bathroom with a scrub brush.

Let me tell you a little about my junk file. It's full of over the top, love you, hate you, wish you were dead scenes. The character's emotions are all over the place. Looking at the file, I realized something interesting about myself. I can't write usable scenes when I'm angry or stressed. I've heard it before and will probably hear again that I should be able to write no matter what. Sorry. I'm not wired that way. I can only handle one problem at a time.

Give me calm, happy, bored, or even sad and I can get in the zone, no problem. Thank God I'm not a chronically angry or stressed person. My bathroom would glisten, but I'd never get any writing done.

I've got a secret. I'm a habitual procrastinator. Biggest problem, I justify my habit with legitmate things that need to be done. The laundry is piling up, my living room is a mess, grandbaby wants to play. My family has decided to stop enabling me. My son cleaned the livng room, my daughter and her boyfriend took the baby shopping with them, and hubby did the laundry. Guess what I came up with next. I just want to wash my hair, then I'll get started.

That's when it hit me. What am I afraid of? So what if I sit at my desk and stare blankly at the screen? Turn out three pages of crap? No big deal. Realize I really hate my characters? No problem. But it is a problem. I make it a problem. I also have a bad habit of setting myself up for a bad writing day before my fingers hit the keyboard. But I sit down anyway, take a deep breath and write. Something wonderful happens. I don't have a bad writing day. I have a really good one. Sure, the chapter doesn't sparkle like I want, but I realize I can fix it.

And I turn out three pages of pretty good material. And my day has been saved. Now on to the next task. I really do have to wash my hair.

About Me

A dreamer. That's how I would describe myself. Come to think of it, that's how most people would describe me. It's one of the reasons I fell in love with paranormal romances.
I live in Atlanta, Ga, with the man of my dreams. We met in Korea while serving in the armed forces and after a two month courtship, got married. We've been together 21 years.